ORLANDO — Dwight Howard may be entering his 10th season in the NBA, but Kevin McHale — Howard’s new coach — still thinks the superstar center has plenty of room to grow.
“You’re a finished product the day you retire,” McHale said yesterday after the Rockets’ 88-80 victory over the 76ers in the opening game of the Orlando Summer League. “Up until then, you’re always doing something. In the NBA, you are always evolving and changing.
“I think Dwight is in the process of evolving and changing. He said he feels way better and healthier than he has. His back feels better. I just anticipate him coming in and being the most dominant center in the league.”
McHale will get a chance to work with Howard on a daily basis this season in Houston after Howard decided to leave the Lakers and join the Rockets after meeting with those two teams earlier this week, along with the Mavericks, Warriors and Hawks. Howard has said part of his decision to sign with the Rockets was to get a chance to play for McHale, one of the best offensive big men in the post of all time.
And despite all of the distractions Howard has created over the past two seasons as he has publicly waffled on his future, there’s no denying he’s one of the league’s best players when healthy and performing at the top of his game, and should form one of the league’s most devastating one-two punches alongside budding superstar guard James Harden.
“When he’s physically right, he goes out there and dominates the game in a lot of ways,” McHale said. “He’s a unique guy. He can score 10 points and totally dominate the game. … There’s only a few players in the NBA who can do that.”
There has been a lot of talk since Howard signed that the Rockets will have to move incumbent starting center Omer Asik in a trade, given that many think he and Howard both need to occupy the space around the basket to be effective. But McHale said he didn’t think that was necessarily the case, and the two can possibly play alongside one another.
“You can play two bigs,” McHale said. “You have to get spacing, and your small guys have to make sure that your small guys follow that.
“Omer had a great year for us. He became one of the top centers in the league.”
Regardless, the Rockets have immediately vaulted into the top four in the Western Conference, with the Howard-Harden tandem capable of giving any team in the West — and the league, for that matter — a run for its money.
But McHale isn’t ready to guarantee any parades through the streets of Houston just yet.
“We’ll see,” he said. “I’m just looking forward to putting this team together, and then we can play with anybody.”